Iconic religious sites explored in rare featurette

By now most people are probably aware of the famous – or rather infamous – curse alleged to have been placed on the Mayo football team by a priest outside Foxford when they were returning from their All-Ireland victory in 1951 and failed to show respect for a passing funeral.

According to the legend, the curse wouldn’t be lifted until the last member of the team died. That happened in 2023. Now Mayo are All-Ireland champions. Coincidence? Make your own mind up.

Reek Sunday, the day people traditionally climb Croagh Patrick, the mountain where St Patrick is said to have fasted for forty days, coincided with Mayo’s nail-biting win last month. A three-leafed shamrock celebrating their three-point winning margin over Kerry was placed beside the tiny church on the summit. Also placed there was a flag flying the green and red of Mayo with the slogan “Críost Linn.”

On August 18, Croagh Patrick features in a 42-minute film showing at the Irish Film Institute at 6.30, Margit Wagner’s To Stand in God’s Fire as part of a season devoted to her.

Margit, a German, first visited Ireland in 1953. Over the next two decades she made many film and radio documentaries celebrating Ireland’s religious and cultural riches, alerting both Germany and Ireland to these.

The National University of Ireland awarded her an honorary doctorate in 1980 in appreciation of her work. Her films are difficult to find, which makes the season especially welcome.

As well as Croagh Patrick, Margit visits Inis Oirr, the smallest of the three Aran Islands, in the feature. Here the remains of the sixth-century saint, St Caomhán – who’s said to be related to St Kevin of Glendalough – are excavated annually by the inhabitants of the island. This happens on the eve of his feast day in the sunken ruins of Teampall Caomhán.

Margi also visits Skelligs Rock off the Kerry coast. Here she spends time at the beehive huts inhabited by the monks who lived there in, as she says, “unimaginable austerity.”

Showing alongside To Stand in God’s Fire is another film by Margit, Pathways to Art. Here Máire de Paor, Liam Miller, Sean O’ Briain, Sean Mac Reamoinn and Mary Lavin discuss Ireland’s cultural past.

Prof. O’Briain believes this would have been richer were it not for the fact that many of Ireland’s artistic artefacts were plundered by the British during their occupation of our country. Only the castles of the Anglo-Irish ascendancy remain, he asserts.

Such an ascendancy is part of Samuel Abraham’s mockumentary Lady, showing at the IFI from August 14. It centres on the self-obsessed Lady Isabella (Sian Clifford). Her passion for attention becomes surreal when she actually begins to disappear.

She persuades struggling director Sam (Laurie Kynaston) to make a film of her on her grand estate. His hopes for it becoming a Netflix attraction are dashed when he learns that her ambitions don’t extend beyond a local talent show.